CHENNAI: What a fall it has been for Kochi! When India was awarded the U-17 World Cup back in December 2013, Kochi was spoken of as a sure-shot venue for the semifinals, maybe even a long-shot for the final, if Kolkata did not work out. Instead, it now faces the threat of being kicked out of the fixture list.
A couple of days ago, FIFA’s inspection team, headed by tournaments director Jamie Yarza visited Kochi and expressed their disappointment over the progress of work at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
Now U-17 WC officials have told Express that Kochi faces the threat of being knocked off the list, should they fail to meet the May 15 deadline that had been given to them.
FIFA officials have already discussed such a scenario and are prepared to host the World Cup with five cities, or draft in a new venue that they have as a ‘B’ plan. “There are many ways of doing it,” the tournament’s project director Joy Bhattacharjya said.
“There are other cities that we have looked at. It’s very improbable, but possible. Secondly we can host the World Cup with five venues as well. You can potentially do it just by rescheduling matches across the other five cities.”
Bhattacharjya also revealed that the organisers would not give up on Kochi until they can no longer afford to do so. “To drop a city at this stage is a painful thing for us to do,” he said. “Nobody wants to do it. It is not good publicity for us to walk out of a city. But it is not entirely an impossibility.”
The drama started on Thursday, when Yarza in an interview with this newspaper, hinted that there was one city where work was lagging far behind the others. The next day, it was confirmed that the city was Kochi as the FIFA team blasted the pace at which work was being carried out at the JN Stadium.
“I don’t want to go into specifics but when it comes to the general state, a lot is unfinished. All the areas have concerns. The media box, the fire system, the seats — a lot remains to be done. The completion of the work that we requested in our last visit has not been done. There is a lot of concern so we set up a new deadline of May 15,” Yarza had said then.
The FIFA team had also expressed concern over the private shops that were being operated at the stadium and branded them a security concern.
The team, since leaving Kochi, has lauded the preparations at Guwahati and Navi Mumbai. They had also given props to organisers at Goa and New Delhi, despite identifying minor concerns.
vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com